


Dreams of Fire

by Esteliel



Category: American Gods (TV)
Genre: Dream Sex, M/M, Pining, Reunion Sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-25
Updated: 2017-12-25
Packaged: 2019-02-14 11:51:19
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,399
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13007190
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Esteliel/pseuds/Esteliel
Summary: When Salim goes to bed, he dreams of him. He tastes him on his tongue, his skin hot and rough like sun-scorched stone, his mouth full of salt and smoke. He trembles in his dream; he moans voicelessly, his body driven on and on, and when he wakes, his stomach is sticky, and there's the lingering taste of smoke on his tongue.But the small apartment of Ibrahim bin Irem is still empty.Salim goes to find the jinn.





	Dreams of Fire

**Author's Note:**

  * For [CypressSunn](https://archiveofourown.org/users/CypressSunn/gifts).



***

The first time Salim dreams of the jinn, he dreams of hands on his skin that are as hot as fire. Every touch burns on his skin as if he’s never been touched before.

He hasn’t, not like this. The man of fire touches with deliberation, the gentlest brush of a finger searing Salim. His breath is like the wind of the desert, the flexing of his thighs like the shifting of mountains. Salim looks up at him from half-lidded eyes, watching the flames burn above him as the man kindles an even more powerful fire within him.

On his lips, he still tastes the salt of the man’s sweat. He feels the calluses of his fingers against his lips, aches for that slow slide inside him, and then he is filled by fire, as if the desert itself exhales and breathes its life into him. Flame devours all that he was, leaving behind a tender, raw shell of a man who’s been reborn in fire: something raw and new and free.

Then he wakes, and his room is cold. The living flame that has warmed him in his dreams is gone.

But there’s a sweater in the color of dust, and there’s the wallet of Ibrahim bin Irem, and when he slips on the sunglasses, he feels the breath of the desert still warm him from inside.

***

Life in America is not easy. The city and the people in it scare him. But Ibrahim bin Irem can have a life here, and even now, he feels the wind of the desert inside him: hot and powerful, breathing in and exhaling, unexpectedly in sync with the loud, large city all around him.

The jinn is gone, vanished with Salim’s suit and his passport and his air ticket. Sometimes, Salim doesn’t think about him for hours, lost in the grid of streets and the constant soundtrack of honking cars and sirens. 

But when he leaves his cab after a thirteen-hour shift, strips off the sweater and takes a shower in the shitty little apartment that is all he can afford, the desert breathes fire into him once more. While hot water rains down on him and washes off the grime of the streets, he closes his eyes and thinks of the man stepping out of his shower, his gleaming skin and his dark hair and the way the fire in his eyes burned higher when he pulled off Salim’s shirt.

When Salim goes to bed, he dreams of him. He tastes him on his tongue, his skin hot and rough like sun-scorched stone, his mouth full of salt and smoke. He trembles in his dream; he moans voicelessly, his body driven on and on, and when he wakes, his stomach is sticky, and there's the lingering taste of smoke on his tongue.

But the small apartment of Ibrahim bin Irem is still empty.

When he slides on the dust-colored sweater, he pauses for a moment as he catches a glimpse of himself in the mirror. Again the desert seems to exhale into him. Outside, rain is drumming against the window—but from somewhere, there comes a breeze of hot air, sand shifting beneath the scorching sun, a vision beckoning in the distance that he can’t quite make out.

Ibrahim bin Irem could have a good life in New York. The desert is a merciless lover. It kills those who set out unprepared.

Even so, Salim leaves behind the little possessions of his new life as he enters his cab, taking only the dust-colored sweater and the wallet of Ibrahim bin Irem with him as he turns the key and drives away from this loud, bewildering city and its offer of freedom.

***

The man of flame is moving over him. Salim’s lips part, his back arching. The flames are so bright that they nearly blind him, but even so he doesn’t dare to close his eyes.

The jinn is magnificent. Salim runs his arms up his back. The skin beneath his fingers is hot and wet with sweat, and at his touch, the man holds still for a moment, looking down at Salim before his hips roll forward once more.

Salim bites his lip to hold back the cry that wants to escape. The jinn is large; with every thrust, heat fills him until every nerve of his body is sizzling, fire threatening to devour him as though he is a wick the jinn has set fire to.

Salim tightens his fingers, feels his nails scrape against the jinn’s skin as he tenses, a moan vibrating in his chest as he tries to draw him closer, closer, closer still—

And then he wakes abruptly, a horn blaring loudly into his ears. He starts, straightening so suddenly that he bangs his head against the car’s roof.

A moment later, aching and confused and holding his head, he finds himself staring into the face of Mad Sweeney, whose hand is still on the steering wheel. He honks again, and Salim flinches before he pushes Sweeney’s arm away.

“You should thank me,” the leprechaun says, giving him his usual aggressive stare. “Didn’t want you to jizz all over the car.”

Sudden heat rises to Salim’s face when he realizes the state he’s in—even though Sweeney looming threateningly over him is enough to make him soften rapidly.

“Was it really that good to be worth all this? Surely there’s enough dick in New York. No need to go chasing halfway across the country just because his dick made you see stars.”

Embarrassed, Salim shifts in his seat. By now he knows that he shouldn’t let Sweeney’s mockery get to him. It’s simply what the leprechaun does. All the same, with the memory of the jinn’s touch still burning on his skin, it’s hard to think clearly.

“I wish that one day you’ll know the same,” he says earnestly, and Sweeney laughs, his mouth twisting into a grin, even though he finally lets go of the door.

“Getting fucked in the ass by some forgotten genie?” Sweeney scoffs. “No, thanks. Not into rubbing that sort of lamp.”

“Knowing love,” Salim says, and again there is the breath of the desert moving through him, kindling that yearning for the sand and the heat and the touch of the man who _knew_ him.

***

When it happens, it happens like any other dream.

It always starts like this: Salim opens the door of the car. The man before him stops. Then he turns.

Salim steps out of the car. The man looks at him. Then, slowly, he lowers his sunglasses. Fire burns in his eyes, and Salim smiles—not the smile he wore like a uniform, the smile of the American salesman that made the muscles of his face ache, but the small smile that blossoms from the depth of the heart: the smile of a man who has found his destiny.

This is where it stops.

In his dreams, the jinn would smile, too. In his dreams, the jinn would hold out his arms. The heat of the desert would embrace Salim as he looks at this man whom he _knows_ , and be known in return. In his dream, lips would brush his cheek, and then nothing else would matter, because he found him.

His jinn. His afterlife.

This is not how it happens.

When the jinn sees him, he starts. When Salim smiles, all tension leaving him at last, it is the jinn who grows tense instead. When Salim steps toward him, the jinn takes a step back.

“Life sure is great,” Sweeney murmurs mockingly behind him.

Distantly, Salim hears the sound of sand brushing against sand, the breath of the desert that can shift mountains itself over long years. Has he been wrong? This is not how it is supposed to go.

But the desert is unfathomable, and perhaps, for all the tales of his grandmother, the people of the fire don’t—

“Go back, Salim,” the jinn says. He does not lower his sunglasses.

Even now, looking at him, Salim feels his heart racing in his chest and tastes heat and salt on his tongue.

No, Salim thinks, desperate. He knew him. He knows him still as he stands before him, knows as he knew in that one heartbeat of possibility before he reached out and touched his shoulder.

Salim’s a different man now. Not in his heart—but he is no longer Salim the salesman. He is Ibrahim bin Irem the cab driver, who’s no longer afraid of the city that had scared him so at first. He’s Salim from Oman who had a taste of who he could be, and who grabbed that chance with both hands.

He’s a boy staring out at the desert, his grandmother telling him of the man with eyes of fire she’d seen: not in a whisper, but in a proud, strong voice, though his parents would smile at her tales and turn away.

He is.

He’s here, in this forgotten spot at the heart of a continent on the other side of the world.

But even here, the djinn walk. And even here, the desert breathes into his mouth, granting him that glimpse of heat, granting him the strength to reach out and take a step towards the jinn.

“I’ve been looking for you,” Salim says with a smile on his face. It’s tentative, so far from the smile he wore in that waiting room in New York that even his own brother in law wouldn’t recognize him right now.

The jinn looks at him, quiet, unmoving.

A second later, he turns and leaves.

***

The last time Salim dreams of the jinn, he dreams of hands on his skin that are as hot as fire. Every touch burns on his skin, as if he’s never been touched before.

He doesn’t want to wake, this time. In his dream, it’s easy to pretend that this is real, that this is how it happened that first time, that the jinn is still his, and he’s still the jinn’s.

For all that the people of the fire have been a tale his grandmother told him, the jinn’s hand on his skin feels more real than any other touch before. There is a weight behind it, a deliberateness to each press of a finger, as if the slightest caress holds a deeper meaning. And Salim can only gasp for breath and arch, splaying himself open in surrender as strong, hot hands draw down his body.

Then there is the touch of lips against his throat, and Salim gasps, starting awake at the flick of a hot tongue against his pulse.

Salim is still panting, his blood coursing through his veins, and when his fingers involuntarily tighten, he feels, impossibly, the softness of hair.

“You,” he says, the word coming out breathless and confused.

It’s not a dream. This is the shitty motel room where they ended up, Laura and Sweeney in rooms equally as shitty across the corridor.

And there, right in front of his eyes, flames are burning, the jinn looking at him.

“It’s not a dream,” the jinn says. “You’re awake now.”

There are a hundred things Salim could ask: why had he pushed him away? And why is he back now, here?

There’s a war raging outside, Salim knows that. He’s naive, maybe, but he’s not stupid. It’s hard to travel with Mad Sweeney and Laura without realizing what’s going on.

He doesn’t care about their war or the gods of this country.

But God has given this man to him.

_There are angels, there are men who Allah made from mud. Then there are the people of the fire, the jinn._

He speaks it again, watches the flames burn, and reaches out unafraid, resting his hand against the jinn’s cheek. His skin is hot, the beard coarse against his palm, and Salim feels further heat gathering inside him.

Whatever he might have asked or demanded falls away, washed away by a gust of hot air, a breeze that carries the scent of the desert even into this motel room with its stink of grease and cheap perfume.

He trails his thumb over the jinn’s beard, the short hair faintly scratchy, continuing until he reaches his lip. They are very soft, hot to his touch, and when he presses down gently, they part.

It is he who gasps when he slips his finger inside, the jinn’s mouth like a furnace. His tongue is soft as velvet and hot as sun-scorched sand, and when the jinn’s lips close around his finger, Salim feels a jolt run through him, heat gathering in his stomach, his cock hard and aching.

He can’t look away from the jinn’s eyes. Flames are still rising from them, slowly, impossibly beautiful, a living fire that will burn him if he comes too close—but Salim’s traveled too far to be afraid of that. His past has been burned away by the jinn’s touch, and he has become someone new. Or perhaps, what the jinn burned away was nothing but the chains binding him, and now he’s no one but Salim, who could be anything he wants.

There’s only one thing he wants now.

When he closes his eyes, there’s only one path stretching out in front of him, and it leads him right into the desert. He will walk it with bare feet, his body naked, will give himself up to the fire, and won’t ask for anything of his jinn but to be seen. To be known.

The jinn hasn’t undressed. Salim rises to his knees, the sheets falling away from his body. Reverently, Salim strips him of his shirt, button by button. Every single inch of skin he uncovers he greets with a kiss, his mouth worshipping bronze skin gleaming with a sheen of sweat, his tongue tasting the salt and heat. He nuzzles against the curls of dark hair covering the jinn’s broad chest, then licks tentatively at a small, tight nipple until the man groans and pulls his face up to kiss him hungrily.

Against his stomach, Salim can feel the jinn’s arousal, a length of hot excitement burning eagerly against his skin. The jinn is large and hard with desire. Salim’s mouth is filled with the same heat, all of his senses overwhelmed by the sensation of the jinn’s beard rasping against his cheek, the man’s hand clutching his hair. Even now, Salim imagines what it would feel like to sink to his knees and to worship _there_ , an act that’s not hurried and dirty but slow, spending an hour or more to learn the jinn’s shape and taste and pleasure.

Instead, it’s the jinn who pulls away from the kiss first, opening his pants. His cock pushes forward, eager to be free, and without thinking Salim leans forward, at last catching a first taste.

The jinn’s cock is hot against his tongue. He feels like steel and velvet when Salim presses his lips to it, and when the tip of his tongue curls against the small hole, the taste of the jinn’s desire burns through him like a flash of lightning. It sizzles on his tongue, acrid and hot, like scorched glass broken in the sun.

Instead of a moan, Salim draws in a breath. His lips close around the tip of the jinn’s cock as his hands tentatively come to rest on his thighs. They are thick and covered with a fine layer of hair, damp with sweat.

Again Salim curls his tongue around the jinn’s cock, breathing in the hot musk of his desire until he feels dizzy. Beneath his fingers, the strong, broad thighs tremble—and then he feels himself pulled away.

A moment later, the jinn has joined him on the bed. In the sunlight, he looks like a dream—like one of the many dreams that have kept Salim alive, leading him here with their promise.

Only this is no dream.

Even as he thinks it, he feels himself reaching out again to touch in reassurance.

The jinn’s skin is hot, his limbs firm with muscle, slightly rough beneath his fingertips. In the light of the evening sun, his cock gleams with wetness from the worship of Salim’s mouth.

The jinn rises up on one arm to pull Salim close—but this time, it’s Salim who rests his hand against his chest. Gently, he pushes, and then he moves over the jinn. He straddles him until he can feel the jinn’s cock nudging at his hole, but he doesn’t look away from his eyes. Losing himself in the flickering flames, he lowers himself, his lips parting at the stretch as little by little, the entirety of the jinn’s large cock sinks inside him.

It makes him tremble. His own arousal is curving hard against his stomach, but the jinn remains motionless beneath him, watching as Salim gasps at the sensation. Salim’s thighs flex as he makes himself rise a little, and when he pushes back down, the fire in his own blood flickers just as the flames of the jinn’s gaze ignite.

Salim is wet with sweat, every muscle in his body tense at the sensation. The stretch burns. Every time he moves just a fraction, the jinn’s cock presses just right and fire licks up his spine, curling inside his stomach.

He pants, straining against the pressure within as he rises and falls, the jinn burning inside him relentlessly, mysterious and powerful.

But the man beneath him is a man, with the body of a man and the mouth of a man and the hands of a man. And now those strong hands trace up and down his sides in encouragement. It’s a caress unlike any other Salim has ever known.

If he died like this, he could be happy.

 _Life is great,_ he thinks again in overwhelmed astonishment as he places a finger against the full lower lip of the jinn, tracing the wonder of it with tenderness. Then the fire inside him uncurls, his body tensing. The jinn’s hips roll hard against his own, fire erupting and burning away all thought as they hold each other, the heat of their skin mingling.

Later, after they have lazily washed and then done it all over again, the jinn stirs. He places a hand on Salim's chest, trails it slowly down towards where even now the muscles of Salim’s stomach are tense with overwhelmed happiness and lingering desire.

“I did not want you to come,” the jinn says, and then, “I wanted you to leave. Do you know why?”

Pleasantly exhausted, too overcome to think, Salim shakes his head.

“Do you know what’s coming?” the jinn asks again.

Now Salim nods. What does it matter? Nothing of what Mad Sweeney muttered during their journey matters to him.

 _You are my afterlife_ , he thinks again, but doesn’t say it. Instead, he says, “This is where I should be.”

“Perhaps,” the jinn murmurs, his brow creasing, “perhaps.”

A moment later, he rolls to his side, his breath hot against Salim’s ear, his spent cock nestling against Salim’s buttocks in a pleasant reminder of what they’ve shared.

“If you stay, I can’t protect you.”

“You don’t have to.”

Salim’s learned how to navigate the intimidating streets of New York. He survived in a car shared with an unlucky leprechaun and a dead woman. He thinks he’s ready to take on the strange new gods of this country and whatever monsters serve them.

It doesn’t matter anyway. The jinn is his afterlife. He won’t be parted from him again, now that he’s found him.

The jinn is silent for a while. His lips are hot against Salim’s neck. Eventually, Salim shifts a little, and he can feel the jinn’s returning interest in the way his cock begins to harden against him. It’s not unwelcome, despite his lingering exhaustion.

Slowly, he turns in the jinn’s arms. He raises a hand to touch his cheek, then gently trails his fingers down to his mouth again, watching the flames that flicker from his eyes. It makes his own body stir. But there’s time now. There’s time—time to dream in his arms, and time to wake in his arms.

“What’s your name?” Salim asks quietly, and the jinn smiles, teeth gleaming as flames rise from his eyes.

“Give me one.”


End file.
